Fed up with the nonstop anti-woman crap emanating from Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman's mouth, State Rep. Kelda Helen Roys offered to debate him one on one, mano a womano, in public. Unsurprisingly, he turned her down, saying that she wanted to "to gain further platform to misrepresent the Republican position on a variety of issues," which is coward code for "my views are so terrible that not even I am capable of representing them in a way that doesn't make me sound like an asshole."

If the War on Women were an actual war, Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman wouldn't be Rambo, but he'd be close — he'd be one of Rambo's supporting gunman who isn't important enough to have a character name but who is in the background of a lot of shots where Rambo is roaring and firing a gun at something. Grothman's achievements so far this year include recommending that abused women remember the good times rather than leave their husbands, blaming single mothers for child abuse, and sponsoring a bill in Wisconsin that repealed the state's equal pay law, because money is just "more important to men."

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He's an entire casserole of WTF with a sprinkling of crispy fried onions on top.

Unsurprisingly, his 1850 antics don't sit well with many of the state's progressives, including Democratic State Rep. Kelda Helen Roys. The 32-year-old Congressional candidate from Madison offered to debate him last week and was turned down with a hilariously paranoid response that read,

Thank you for your invitation. The tender of your letter indicates that your goal is to gain further platform to misrepresent the Republican position on a variety of issues. I have expounded my positions in many different forums and will continue to do so. I do not intend to debate someone who begins their invitation with the lie that I have "attacked" women and that Republicans are waging a so-called "war on women."

Roys says she wasn't surprised by the rejection, but that doesn't mean she wasn't disappointed. She told me that Grothman is a "true believer," a guy who is convinced of his own righteousness who will follow a colleague down the hall to his or her office in order to make his point, and that his "totally insulated" and "disconnected" views on women and their role in society has led him to a position of "blindness and arrogance." She admitted that a debate with him wouldn't have convinced either side of the other's views, but hoped for the opportunity to hold him immediately accountable for his terribly gross mindset. Grothman couldn't take the heat and refused to enter the kitchen. The kitchen, after all, is for ladies.

I'm no political scientist, but if your views are so difficult to defend that you refuse to say them in the presence of someone who would challenge you out of fear that they'll be "misrepresented" while you're in the damn room, then maybe you should consider getting some less terrible views.

Roys, meanwhile, has bigger and better things to worry about than Grothman's nutbaggery; she's running for Congress. If elected, she'd be the youngest woman in the US legislature, and she hopes other women under 35 will follow suit or risk continuing to be "short changed." "Old men are making the decisions and it's not to our benefit," she explains.

I asked her if she's intimated by the prospect of being the youngest Democrat in the US House of Representatives by a good decade. Without hesitation, she responded, "No. They should be, though."

Grothman was right. Kelda Helen Roys would have made him sound pretty dumb. Not that he needed any help.